JURA J10 Twin Review

JURA’s revival of their J-Series machines started with the short lived J8, which debuted two features, the Sweet Foam System and more subtle Coffee Eye, both of which I’ll cover in this review. Not long after, JURA completely reimagined the machine as a home dual-grinder espresso machine, christening it the J8 Twin. Now, J-Series has received another update, trading the 8 for a 10, which in JURA speak means one thing, cold brew. At a glance, here’s what’s changed with the new JURA J10 Twin:

On-Demand Cold Brew Drinks | Ready-to-Drink Light Extraction Drinks | Wake-Up and Brew Functionality

The Design

The J10 Twin’s defining feature is its two grinders and bean hoppers. JURA is the only manufacturer of super-automatic espresso machines to offer two grinders on a home unit with the ability to designate a specific grinder per drink, or to blend coffee from both. Aesthetically, the J10 Twin echoes the design of the E8 and S8 machines with two sets of spout assemblies (coffee only, and milk) while also utilizing the same three panel touchscreen or Panorama Coffee Panel found on JURA’s other dual grinder machine, the GIGA 10.

Compared to the GIGA 10 (JURA’s only other home machine with two grinders) the J10 Twin is significantly smaller, measuring just 12.2” W and 14.2” H. Even compared to the newly redesigned E8 which is even slimmer than before, the J10 Twin still maintains a relatively compact profile for a machine with two separate grinders.

Dual Grinders

The dual grinders are the signature feature of the J10 Twin, with JURA having to reimagine several aspects of their machine platform in order to fit two conical burr grinders in one machine without dramatically increasing the size.

From the jump I want to acknowledge that JURA's current generation of grinders, P.A.G.3+ (Professional Aroma Grinder Gen 3+) feature a tension relieving reverse spin function that relieves stress on the burrs and allows you to change grind settings in-between beverage preparation. You can actually set your preferred grind range per drink (mild or intense). Now, unlike the Z10 where the burrs adjust themselves to your selected consistency, the J10 Twin will alert you if you aren't currently in the grind range you selected for the drink (similar to reminding you to install the Sweet Foam Capsule) but the machine will ultimately prepare your drink if you wait long enough.

I bring this up because despite this built-in flexibility with your grind settings, the J10 Twin still offers a huge amount of customization and convenience with two grinders. All coffee drinks on the J10 Twin allow you to designate which grinder to pull beans from in 50% increments and you can even give names to each grinder (Regular, Decaf, Cold, Drip, etc.) 

Dedicated Decaf Grinder

Probably the most obvious use for two grinders is to have one solely dedicated to decaf coffee. If you're someone who drinks more than one cup of decaf a day, this is definitely worth considering. Not only can you prepare freshly ground decaf coffee on demand, but you can also blend beans from both grinders for a true half-caf if you want. Even machines like the De'Longhi Rivelia with easily swappable hoppers still require you to change out your beans if you want to make a decaf, and the only other alternative is to use the bypass doser with pre-ground coffee (or maybe you bought a cheap grinder for decaf grinding).

No matter how you slice it, having a dedicated grinder for decaf coffee is the most convenient way to enjoy both styles on-demand at home.

Dedicated Cold Brew Grinder

Like I mentioned, the J10 Twin is designed to allow you to change grind settings between drinks. But what if you don't want to? Cold extraction is the best example I can think of for why you wouldn't want to be bothered like that. Instead of changing your grind back and forth, you can set one grinder extra coarse and use it for all of your cold brew drinks.  But that's not all. If there are particular coffees that you prefer cold vs. hot, you can also load up the cold hopper with them so you've got the grind size and the coffee you prefer for cold brew.

Other Possibilities

Honestly there are tons of ways that you can make use of two grinders, but a few others I've experimented with are tings like a dedicated drip grinder for all of your long coffee drinks, a grinder for your favorite coffee and one for rotating experiments, a grinder for all of your milk drinks, and these days maybe even a grinder for all your light extracted drinks. Ultimately if you're someone who enjoys experimenting with coffee and optimizing for the best flavor, having two grinders is one of the best ways to do just that.

Coffee Eye

Because the J10 Twin has two separate spout assemblies, JURA developed the Coffee Eye to detect whether or not your cup is placed under the correct spouts when you make a drink. If the machine doesn’t detect a cup, it will throw an alert for you to move your cup before brewing starts. Given how quickly you can make a drink just by tapping the screen, it’s a nice feature to have that helps prevent coffee (or milk) from dispensing all over the drip tray instead of into your cup.

Panorama Coffee Panel

The J10 has a three panel touchscreen called the Panorama Coffee Panel. It’s the same one used on the GIGA 10 and helps as a subtle visual design language to communicate the machine’s “dual grinder” identity. Compared to the one-piece touchscreens found on machines like the S8 and Z10, its main contribution is to break up navigation into windows. When serving as the main drink menu for example, you can center your most brewed drink right in the middle.

For other programming and settings navigation, the panels are used to display specific information or provide continuity, like showing which phase of a drink you’re in, or showing you breadcrumbs for the menu option you’re in.

What's New

On-Demand Cold Brew

Easily the biggest upgrade the J10 Twin has received is the inclusion of on-demand cold brew beverages via JURA's Cold Extraction Process. All coffee drinks can be brewed using cold extraction, meaning that the thermoblock boiler is bypassed so water is pumped directly to the brew unit from the reservoir. The water is also pulsed at a different frequency in order to extract perfect on-demand cold brew. One thing to mention is that you'll still need to fill your glass with ice in order to truly cool down your drink.

On the Z10 where this feature debuted, the machine's self-adjusting grinder the PRG allowed the grind to be made coarser on-demand as a cold drink was being prepared. On the J10 Twin, if you're planning to brew a lot of cold extracted drinks my suggestion is to dedicate an entire grinder to cold brew. Not only will you be able to set the grind extra coarse for cold extraction, but you can even go the distance with getting a specific coffee that's optimized for it. 

While the Z10 can ultimately brew every drink with the correct grind setting thanks to its grinder, having a machine with two grinders like the J10 Twin is the only way to achieve the next level of customization for cold brew via your actual bean selection.

Light Extraction

In most cases we're asked by customers how to brew hotter coffee with their super-automatic machines, but for some, the coffee is more than hot enough, too hot in fact.

JURA developed Light Extraction Process specifically to brew coffee at a lower temperature so it is immediately ready to drink. That lower temperature is around 140° F and the dose of is also reduced by approximately 10%, so overall the coffee is less strong. With the J10 Twin's dual grinders it will be possible to customize an entire grinder for light extracted drinks so the J10 Twin may be the best JURA machine to use if you want to experience this feature.

I fully explored the Light Extraction brewing mode in my review of the JURA C9 when it debuted earlier this year, so be sure to check that out for even more in-depth info including in-cup temperature test results and my recommended best practices for light extractions.

Coffee Timer

The Coffee Timer is a new features that allows you to queue a drink to brew in the in the future (most in the morning for example).

You're given the option to enable the Coffee Timer when you power down the J10 Twin using the main power switch. Once selected, the machine will rinse. It will not rinse again until 8 minutes after your drink is made or 16 hours from your set time. You'll be instructed to use the J.O.E. app to select your desired drink and brew time. The J10 Twin comes with a WiFi transmitter installed, so you simply have to download the J.O.E. app to use the timer.

Most commonly, the Coffee Timer will be used for waking the machine up to prepare a drink for you in the morning, but the reality is that you can use it to schedule a drink for any reason. This might be more of an edge case scenario, but if you have a schedule where you drink coffee at the same time every day, you can also use the Coffee Timer to account for that as well.

Brewing on the J10 Twin

The J10 Twin uses its touchscreen to present drink options for brewing. Tapping a drink icon initiates brewing immediately while pressing and holding a drink icon lets you enter its permanent programming menu.

Tapping the top of the center panel will pull up the J10 Twin's four programmable user profiles where you can program up to three custom drinks, while tapping the bottom pulls up temporary world selection to make a one-off drink in a unique world of indulgence (light, cold or sweet). Nine drinks are displayed per screen with arrows used to navigate between screens.

By default, the J10 Twin comes with JURA's Wifi transmitted pre-installed so the machine can be connected to the J.O.E. (JURA Operating Experience) app for additional customization and features if desired.

The Menu

The J10 Twin has a pretty massive menu of drinks tat it can prepare. JURA puts the count at 46, though that requires a bit of an asterisk. All coffee drinks can be prepared as classic hot brew, cold brew, and light extraction. All milk drinks can additionally be brewed as sweet foam variations as well, and the Espresso and Coffee options can be brewed as x2. I've listed each unique drink (15 total) that the machine can prepare below.

Espresso, Coffee, Americano, Lungo, Espresso doppio, Cortado, Espresso macchiato, Caffè latte, Cappuccino, Flat white, Latte macchiato, Portion of milk foam, Portion of milk, Hot water, Hot water for green tea

Drink Programming

When programming, there are several universal settings shared by all drinks: Coffee Strength, Temperature, Volume, and Consistency of grind. Strength is the amount of coffee ground for the drink (or the dose) and can be set in 8 increments with the dose ranging from 5 - 16g of coffee. Temperature is the brewing temperature which ranges between the 170°s - high 180°s F (when recorded at the spouts) between low, medium and high settings. Volume refers to the amount of water that passes through the puck of coffee.

As I mentioned above, the grind setting you program for a drink will trigger a reminder to change your grind if it's not set properly. Additionally, all coffee drinks on the J10 Twin can be programmed to pull 100% of their coffee from a single grinder, or spilt between them evenly.

There are additional contextual programming options for specific drinks, such as the amount of hot milk or milk foam (measured in seconds) or the amount of hot water to add to the Americano. Drinks can also be prepared using pre-ground coffee because you can never have too many options.

Milk Drinks

If you enjoy milk drinks, the J10 Twin will treat you very well. On the right side of the machine is a dedicated assembly for milk drinks (and don't worry, the assembly has separate spouts for coffee and milk). The J10 Twin also has the ability to produce two different textures of milk, flat heated milk, and incredibly airy and dense milk foam.

Like a all JURA machines, the frother on the J10 Twin uses a pickup tube that siphons milk from a container using steam pressure to heat and aerate it. You can use something as simple as a cup, or connect to a refrigerated unit like JURA's Cool Control.

Depending on the drink you're preparing, you will need to physically set the dial on the frother to the correct position. This is trivial, and the dial is clearly labeled with icons to tell you what type of milk it is currently set to. For certain drinks like the latte macchiato that use both styles of milk, the machine will also prompt you to change the position of the dial during drink preparation.

To compare the J10's frothing to other JURAs, it's more robust the E6 and E8 which can only produce a single texture of foam while being slightly less convenient than the Z10 and GIGA 10 with the minimal necessity of manual intervention to change textures. It's possible you'll make a drink with the frother in the wrong position, but you also have more flexibility to change the ratios of hot milk and foam in your drinks via manual adjustment.

Cleanup when you're done frothing is the easiest in the industry with a dedicated cleaning container that creates a closed loop within the frother to thoroughly clean the milk tube and spouts and then dispense the waste water back into the container for easy removal to the sink.

Sweet Foam

Sweet foam debuted on the J10 Twin's predecessor the J8 and uses a capsule of syrup to blend flavor with milk while frothing. The capsule attaches to the milk frother in place of the stock spout and milk is blended with syrup as your drink is prepared. It's a simple yet effective way to infuse flavor into milk rather than just your coffee, especially on foam heavy drinks like the cappuccino where a layer of sweetened foam float on top.

The system works well, but there are a few details to remember. Each capsule is good for only a single drink and not intended to be used multiple times in a row. This is a fairly minimal limitation as the capsule pulls right off of the spout and can be rinsed very easily. However, someone with limited hand-eye coordination or manual dexterity may have a hard time refilling the sweet foam capsules. It's also worth noting that the system only works with lighter syrups that blend easily and can't be used with thick sauces like chocolate or caramel.

As a final note as well, when you program or select a drink to be prepared with sweet foam, all this does is tell the machine to show you a prompt to install a sweet foam capsule before brewing. You can obviously prepare drinks with sweet foam even if you don't select the option for it.

Final Thoughts

At the end of the day it's really hard to compare the J10 Twin to other machines because there are very few like it. If you drink regular and decaf coffee every day, this is your machine, full stop. Then, once the dust settles, you can explore a machine that gives you near unparalleled freedom to experiment with and customize coffee in ways you just can't without a second grinder. All this, on top of a machine that can now prepare on-demand cold brew coffee, sweetened foam, and ready-to-drink light beverages. What's not to love?

Photography by Gage Nettles

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